“Mr. Tough FBI Guy is sympathetic to a fish?” Liv put her hand to her chest with a dramatic flourish, no qualms about teasing him. “I’m shocked.”
Finn attempted a wry smile, but the effect of her standing there so relaxed was too distracting. How long had it been since he was able to be so unguarded with another person? Even outside his undercover work, he couldn’t remember the last time things had felt so easy with someone. She made him feel like that kid he used to be. And like that kid, he wanted to reach out and pull her to him, taste the beer on her lips, feel her smiling against his mouth.
He looked away, pretending to stare at the lake. “Don’t tell my boss. You’ll ruin my street cred.”
“Right. Street cred.” She got quiet for a moment, and he sensed her watching him. “How did you deal with that kind of thing undercover? I imagine you had to be pretty ruthless.”
Unease moved through him and he glanced at her, finding her expression curious but without judgment. He squatted down, busying himself with finding another rock. “Ruthless was the name of the game. Showing any emotion besides anger could be deadly. Showing sympathy was as dangerous as showing fear. I had to…turn off those parts of myself.”
“Sounds tough.”
He picked up a rock and squeezed it. “It was at first, but then it got easy. Too easy, probably.”
When he’d put a bullet in Dragonfly’s second-in-command, he’d barely felt a blip on his moral radar. Yes, the guy had been a threat and would’ve killed Finn without thought. But if Finn could do the same, how different were they, really?
“Which is why your boss is worried,” Liv concluded.
“Yeah,” Finn said, a familiar dread moving through him. A dread that whispered that he could never go back, that promised him he’d shut off machinery that couldn’t be switched back on.
She crouched next to him, selected a different rock, and then gently pried his fingers open.
He lifted his gaze to meet hers. She placed her rock in his palm next to his rock and gave him a soft smile. “I’m not worried.”
He curled his fingers around the stones, catching her fingers in the process. “Why not?”
“Because you mean it when you say you’d feel bad about the fish.” She stood and pulled him up with her. “Now let’s see if you can suck less at this rock-skipping thing. I’ll show you my secret tips.”
Finn didn’t want to let go of her hand. Her easy certainty in him was more than he deserved…and dangerous. “Don’t give me so much credit, Liv. I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but you’d be horrified by some of the things I did while I was under. And more horrified by the things I looked away from and didn’t step in to stop. The fish is just a fish. Don’t absolve me over that.”
Her jaw flexed, determination filling her eyes. “Did you kill anyone?”
“Yes.”
She flinched, but the resolve didn’t waver. “Who wouldn’t have killed you?”
“No.”
“Rape someone?”
He grimaced. “Of course not. I would never—”
“I know,” she said and let go of his hand. “Don’t you get that? I wouldn’t be here if I suspected you’d really gone to the dark side. I get that you had to do what you had to for your job. If that meant numbing your emotions to survive, then that w
as the cost. You can’t expect everything to snap back in place overnight. Believe me, I was a pro at numbing things. It takes a while to remember how to feel stuff again. I’m still working on it.”
He let out a breath, still uncomfortable with her faith in him. “What do you mean?”
She set her beer down and shrugged. “I stopped getting wasted and getting high. I stopped sleeping around while wasted or high. That was a start. Then I focused on my career.” She shook her head and frowned. “But I’m beginning to realize that the job thing has its own numbing effect. Workaholic still has aholic in it.”
Finn rubbed his thumb over the smooth rock in his hand, considering her and honored that she’d trust him with that kind of personal information. But he could tell the admission had cost her something. He tried to think of a way to shift the focus away from such serious topics. “So this is your solution? Taking a break and agreeing to hang out with a dude who’s exponentially more screwed up than you?”
She laughed under her breath—the soft sound getting devoured by the snapping of the fire—and put her hands on her hips. “Yes. Exactly. I am super brilliant.”
“And super beautiful.”
The second the words slipped out of his mouth, he cringed.
She blinked, her superhero pose sagging.